In a similar situation in business, as soon as you declare you are moving to a competitor, you are given gardening leave or allowed to leave immediately.

A sensible line of thought.

So Madge approaches IL and says: "When I leave, can I take Tommy with me?" IL says: "No".

Is that really so controversial?

But hasn't Tommy already stated that he wants to return to the NRL? If that's the case is there anything really wrong with Madge saying "If you are coming back, do you fancy coming to Souths?"

I find it suspicious the way these rumours only seem to surface on occasions when we lose.

It's like we're looking for a reason that's not related to our on-field quality (which on this occasion was lacking).

I will admit that these rumours, and there's now been more than one, are starting to tarnish Madge's reputation a little. It perhaps wouldn't be a bad thing if he made a statement of some sort.

It's a bit underhand though isn't it? If TL leaves to go to Australia then good luck to him, but I'd hope our current coach wasn't spending his time here trying to persuade our current players to go to Australia, and for what it's worth I don't think he would.

If Maguire/Souths want Leuluai, then Souths have plenty of officials who can have a chat to Tommy's agent.

No, not at all. And I said that in the above post providing it's done in the off season.

It's nothing to do with us losing at the weekend either. I like Madge as a coach and as person but wouldn't want him in charge if he's got his eye on next year in any way, shape or form. Leave that to Russell Crowe and Souths. Michael Maguire isn't employed by Souths.

Pat was out of contract and had subsequently signed a new deal and rumours from down under have suggested both Finch and Tommy have expressed an interest in returning to the NRL, so it makes sense that Madge would have a word with them. FWIW from what I have read it looks like Tommy will at least see out his current contract. It's not like hes been tapping up all our players hes probably just spoken with the ones who he thought might be available, which is fair enough imo. Listening to Madge's interviews he still seems to be 100% focussed on the job in hand over here.

So we denied him a release. I wonder whether we may have allowed Tommy to begin talks with other clubs earlier than usual because he's expressed a wish to leave. To almost compensate for the fact that Wigan won't let him leave early. At least then he'll be able to negotiate the best deal possible for himself, over the next 18 months.

I can't honestly say I'll won't be disappointed if Tommy does leave. Far to hot and cold for me, with no true position nailed down.

Same here

According to some journo on Twitter, Lulu has spoken to the Press Association about asking Wigan if he could leave to join Souths.

rlhttps://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME